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This week we are pleased to feature the work of Peter Coates. His formal training in stonemasonry, carving and architectural sculpture introduced him to letter carving, letter design and inscriptional composition. Subsequent long-term collaboration with Ian Hamilton Finlay has involved a great deal of lettering rendered in a wide variety of forms, materials and locations. Dealing with the visual nature of text rather than the content has led to an interest in the abstract possibilities of text.

We begin with the Textus project, the result of a collaboration with Paul Emery marking the 800th anniversary of the Leeds Charter. The text served as the vehicle for a computer-generated animation which was projected onto the Lifting Tower in 2007. Stills from the series can be purchased from http://textus.zenfolio.com.